Barney's Blog

Open Source the Enterprise Rule, Not Exception

Almost every shop I've ever talked to or toured is multi-vendor, heterogenous and a beast to maintain. One can go single-vendor and heterogenous, but the software isn't as good -- and it's still a beast to maintain.

That's why it's no surprise that the majority of enterprises have some form of open source. Actuate, which has a complement of open source tools, says that over half of U.S. companies use open source, with substantially more in Europe.

The 50 percent number seems low if you define open source use as any use. In fact, Gartner agrees and puts the number at more like 85 percent.

According to the Actuate survey, over 75 percent of companies develop software with open tools, while little more than half use open operating systems such as Linux. Hmm...I'll go with the trends, but the OS numbers sound a mite low.